Doctor Who (12 page)

‘What if Swan's listening in?'

‘I know you can find a safe place to talk somewhere in the bowels of Ma Bell. Come on, Mondy. You owe me one.'

‘If Swan finds out I'm even talking to you,' said Mondy, ‘I'm a dead man.'

‘Well, I'd better hand you over then,' I said. I passed the phone to Bob.

OUR GLORIOUS RETURN
to the nation's capital: two rooms in a hotel slightly less crappy than the last one. Oh well, appreciate the advantages over home: room service, no housework, and a soda machine down the hall. If I'd had a spare shirt I've have sent it down to be laundered.

This time Peri butted in while Bob was talking to the receptionist, and insisted on having her own room. I think it just hadn't occurred to him or the Doctor that she might like a little privacy. After this morning's bathroom gymnastics I was tempted to get a room of my own as well, but I wanted to be able to eavesdrop.

Bob rented another car and buzzed off to see about tapping Swan's phones. I was torn between wanting to accompany him to see how it was done, and wanting to hang around the Doctor to see what he'd do next. In the end I decided to stick with him, if only to minimise the chances of being spotted by Swan.

Peri also insisted on having something to do. ‘I might not be a computer expert, but I've got a brain,' she reminded the Doctor. ‘There must be some way I can help. Anything's better than watching you guys play with that chunk of plastic.'

‘Yes indeed there is, young Peri,' said the Doctor, brightening. We were sitting around in his room while he fiddled with the Apple II. ‘I'm going to do a little investigating of my own into Miss Swan's affairs. That's going to mean sifting through quite a bit of information, but the results could be invaluable.' The
Doctor gave the Apple a reassuring pat. ‘But first, I have an errand for you to run.'

Peri jumped up and saluted. ‘What is it?'

He handed her a wodge of cash. ‘Go and buy a printer for this thing,' he said. Peri stuck out her tongue, but she went.

And so began the hackers' version of legwork. I drove Peri to a computer shop and dropped in at my apartment for a change of clothes. By the time we got back, the Doctor had broken into Swan's credit card records. (He was more worried that Swan might notice than that the credit company would.)

The Doctor printed out page after page of Swan's credit card transactions – almost a year's worth. The printer chewed steadily through the paper we'd bought, until the last sheet fluttered out onto the floor.

‘Oh well,' said the Doctor, ‘that should be enough.' He gathered up the bundle of dead tree and handed it to Peri. ‘Your job is to look for anything interesting, anything unusual. Anything which might tell us something useful about Swan and her activities.'

Peri flipped through the first few pages of the massive printout. ‘Looks like she spends most of her money at computer stores.' She sat down, already absorbed in the thickly printed lines, twirling a highlighter pen around in her fingers.

And there we sat for the next few hours, while Peri muttered to herself and made the occasional mark on the page, and the Doctor stared into the Apple's screen and made little ‘aha!' noises. I would have liked to borrow the machine, dial up my news service, and type up a report, but they'd have killed me.

The Doctor fooled around online for a little longer, then went back to fooling around with the Eridani's plastic ball. I took a nap. Only two things interrupted the boredom of the next few hours. One was a delivery of a dozen red roses, which the
Doctor sent back as it wasn't for us. The other was Bob's triumphant return from the land of phone crime.

‘How did you get on?' said the Doctor.

Bob gave him a thumbs-up. ‘Mission accomplished. We can listen in to Swan's phone calls any time we like.'

Peri looked up from her pile of printouts. ‘I hope we're doing the right thing.'

Bob knew it was a bad idea, but he reckoned that with his sandy hair stuffed under a toque and in the rented car, he was pretty difficult to identify. So on his way back, he had driven past his house, just to take a look.

Everything looked just like it did any day. There were no police cars or crime scene tapes, no-one in the street. His house looked fine. Bob cruised past again, trying to see if anything inside had been touched.

He couldn't stand it. He had to know if they'd confiscated his computers. He especially couldn't stand the thought of losing that brand-new, five-grand IBM PC. The driveway was full of snow: he parked in the street and crept in through his back door.

The study was untouched. His notes and books and hardware had not been shoved into cardboard boxes and carried off by the Feds. Bob relaxed. Nobody had been in here since their panicked run to Baltimore. At the time, bolting had seemed like one hell of a good idea, especially after finding that tap. Bob gave his phone an evil look as he passed it on the way to the kitchen.

Bob actually leapt backwards through the kitchen door in fright. Taped to the fridge was a huge occult symbol drawn in thick red and black marker.

He was gripped by several conflicting urges: tear the thing
off the fridge door, run out of the house, run back into the study to check again everything was OK, run through the house to check there wasn't a dead snake in his bathtub or a live snake in his bed, grab the phone and call the Doctor (argh! no!), or just stand there slack-jawed and try to analyse the symbol.

He pulled the paper off the fridge with shaking hands. The seal was drawn freehand, but extremely neatly. It was all contained in a circle; inside that, a ring of Greek writing; inside that, another circle, divided into four by arrows; inside each quarter, a square crammed with more symbols, alchemical and astrological. It was damned complex. But talismans never were very elegant.

Bob stumbled into the study and grabbed some of his books. No, he was right – it wasn't from the Goetia, or the Key of Solomon, or the Heptameron. But nor was it just a scribble by someone trying to be spooky – it was too well-constructed, the work of someone who knew what they were doing.

Bob laid the symbol down on the kitchen table, carefully. He didn't want it near the phone or the computer. He didn't want to bring it with him, either. He made a quick sketch of it on the back of some printer paper, folded it up, and stuffed it into his jeans pocket. Maybe the Doctor could work it out.

Before he left the house, he dug his Sixth Pentacle of Mars out of a bedroom drawer and slung the talisman around his neck on a leather thong. No sense in taking any chances.

Unfortunately, he'd already taken one. And blown it.

Swan had lived in her station wagon, parked down the street, waiting for Bob to return. She had popped caffeine pills to stay awake, making sure she didn't miss a moment of the nothing that was happening in the street. She'd read the
Washington Post
from cover to cover by the time her prey showed up.

Swan waited while Bob went inside. She ate a cold, limp taco without taking her eyes off the house. Finally he emerged, looking nervous, and climbed back into his rent-a-wreck.

Swan followed, keeping well back. Bob never noticed her. She hoped her little message had rattled his mind.

She spent a few minutes driving around, looking for a parking spot near the hotel. No need to hurry. She strode in through the front doors carrying her suitcase and went to the little florist's shop.

‘I'd like to send some flowers to one of your guests,' she said. ‘Robert Salmon.' The florist gave her a card to sign, and she scribbled, ‘Best wishes for your bar mitzvah. Florence.'

Swan had guessed Bob would sign in under his own name. If he were the sort to have a fake ID or two, she would have known about it. As it turned out, she didn't have long to sit in the lobby before a bellhop went past carrying the massive bouquet.

Swan quietly got up and followed the bellhop into the elevator. She watched from the vending machine niche down the hallway as someone answered the door. ‘I'm afraid these aren't for us,' said a voice in an English accent.

Swan made her way down into the basement, where she found the bridging box for the whole hotel. A couple of cleaners gave her an odd look, but she just went on as though they weren't there, and they left her to whatever she was doing.

Which was attaching a DNR to the Doctor and company's phone line. The Dial Number Recorder would print out every number they called.

Early that evening, the Doctor plucked a fob watch from the inside pocket of his jacket. ‘It's time,' he said, getting up from the Apple II and stretching. ‘I've got to call the Eridani and arrange our delivery.' Bob, who'd had nothing to do all afternoon except
watch the idiot box, eagerly leapt onto the abandoned machine.

Swan watched the Doctor leave, by himself, with a cardboard box tucked under his arm. He never noticed her, sitting at a glass table in the café area, downing an extra caffeine pill with her second coffee.

Swan could have followed him. Maybe she could even have got the device off him – I can easily see her as a mugger, vibrating with stimulants and cold anger, wielding one of the Japanese knives I'd seen in her kitchen. But instead, she decided to borrow the power of the law.

Swan went back to the basement and looked at the little roll of tape in the DNR. It had registered a single number. Swan clipped her linesman's test set to an outgoing line and called up a C/NA operator. Then she called the police.

The three of us almost walked into Swan as we exited the elevator. We were on our way to dinner. She was just stepping out of the other elevator, on her way back from the basement.

We stared at her: Bob and Peri and me, looking guilty as hell with our mouths hanging open. Swan looking guilty in her own way, her face forming a protective blank mask.

I expected a sarcastic remark, the sort of thing passed in the hallways in high school, a little flourish of superiority. She had found us again. She had proved her electronic omniscience and caught us with-our computational trousers down. At the least she could have given us a knowing smile before floating out of the building.

Nothing. Just that blank stare. The personality she had shown in cyberspace stopped there.

‘Come on,' I muttered to my partners in crime. We backed into the elevator, its doors still yawning open as though in
surprise. They slid shut, cutting off Swan's empty glance.

‘The Doctor,' said Peri, as the lift slid silently upwards. ‘Do you think Swan knows where he's going?'

‘She's not following him, that's for sure,' said Bob.

‘She found us again. Maybe she found out where he's headed, too. That could mean the Eridani are in big trouble.'

‘We'll call them,' said Bob.

‘But what if Swan is listening in!'

‘What difference is it gonna make?' Bob leaned his forehead against the elevator's mirrored wall, looking squashed. ‘Man, she knows everything. It doesn't matter what we do. She knows it all.'

‘¿HOLA?'

‘Luis? It's Sarah.'

‘Sarah! I have some wonderful news for you.'

‘Don't tell me just now. I need an eyeball,
en seguida
.'

‘No problem. Let's go to the park, like spies. I'll be carrying a red rose.'

‘How about the Mall? Lots of people around.'

‘OK, opposite the Smithsonian Castle. I'll bet my news is bigger than yours.'

‘I'll see you there in an hour, if the traffic is merciful.'

Luis Perez was ten years older than Swan, a greying Mexican who had met her on the conference calls when he first emigrated to California. They had hung out together on the phone system for years, never meeting in the flesh until Luis moved to DC to be closer to his relatives.

Luis worked in a library in Adams Morgan. For him, computers and phones were still just a hobby, while they'd become a career for Swan. He still used his phreaking skills to place free long-distance calls to his garrulous
abuela
in Puebla. But these days his main interest was collecting. His flat rivalled Swan's own home museum of things electronic.

Luis was waiting for her on the well-trodden grass of the Mall, wrapped tight in a grey wool coat, a single baby rose clutched in a gloved hand. The National Mall is a
two-and-a-half-mile line of sight between the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol, with the Washington Monument sticking out of the middle like a stray nuke. Half a million people line the Mall each year for the Fourth of July fireworks.

DC is low, with long lines of sight, boxy classical architecture mixed with weird sixties curves. Driving around in it you go from pompous to funky, wealth to poverty, business to tourism. The whole thing is very slowly sinking into the swamp plain it was built on.

Luis gave Swan a mock bow and handed her the flower. She looked at it. ‘I gotta talk to you about that thing I got in western Maryland that time,' she said.

Luis looked at her in surprise. ‘I also want to talk to you about “western Maryland”.'

‘Well, I hope you're having more luck than I am. I've got a bunch of smartasses on my tail who ripped me off. I've just set the police on them.'

Luis was getting more surprised by the moment. ‘The police?' he said, looking around.

‘I told them it was a sculpture. Worth a fortune, If they can't get it back I might just strangle the little bastards with my bare hands. They're good, Luis, really good for a change. We've been playing cat and mouse for days and I'm not sure whether I'm the cat or the mouse.'

‘What can I do?'

Swan looked at him. ‘I didn't call you to ask for help. I wanted to warn you. They might come looking for you.'

Luis nodded. The great Sarah Swan never asked for help; she only made bargains, collected favours. He put a gloved hand on her arm. ‘Yes, I have been having more luck than you,' he said. ‘Come with me. Come and see.'